


Villainous

by Winxhelina



Series: The complicated, difficult and occasionally very romantic relationship between Dr. Stephen Strange and Dr. Christine Palmer [2]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Christine gets a bit of her own magic for a while, F/M, Flashbacks, Humour, Memories, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Romance, Sexual innuendos, Villains, flirtation, relics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 15:12:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14813781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winxhelina/pseuds/Winxhelina
Summary: While Christine Palmer wonders over the possibility of starting a practice of her own, one tailored to the needs of all the supernatural beings in New York, she reflects on her own firsthand experiences with supernatural powers, particularly those concerning a former colleague and lover Dr. Stephen Strange. Sequel to “Looking for you and finding myself, but should be more or less fine on it’s own too.





	Villainous

Starting her own practice, one especially tailored to doctor superheros and people with abilities, shouldn’t be impossible, Christine Palmer thought. Hard, sure, but not impossible. She had experience on her side and unlike the neurosurgeon Stephen Strange, she was loved by her colleagues all around. The only hard bit would be finding people who were fine with all that kind of super powerful stuff and wouldn’t freak out. Mary maybe? She seemed like a tough girl, one that had seen things, even more than most of them.

Christine took out a photograph of Stephen and herself in France again and looked at it once more.

“I could do it, Stephen, couldn’t I?” she whispered, she was still seated in the Sanctum library. Wong was doing something inappropriately mundane looking for their current situation. Was he indexing that shelf? Really? Christine brought her thoughts back to her own practice. It would be difficult to get people to come to her with their worries too, she supposed. How would she spread the word? The Internet? Anonymous forums?

“Wong?!” she spoke up, the man turned to face her and she got up to walk towards her.

“This place is a Sanctum, right?”

“Yes. It’s one of the three bases - “

“I know, Stephen told me, but what I mean is – is it like a real Sanctuary? Like a church where people can come to seek help?”

“Well, more often times than not people come here to steal some artefacts, but yes. They could come and seek help with magical problems.”

Christine smiled. So maybe they could collaborate. Ask Wong to direct people in need to her?  She did know that because of the relics and valuables stored here people often attempted robberies. She had seen it herself. During one of her very first visits here not long after the beautiful trip to France. Christine found herself walking, almost thorn to one of the relic cupboards, a beautiful staff lied within, one with a pink stone that glowed invitingly as she approached, already familiar with Christine’s energy. She rested her fingers against the cupboard door and the staff tapped against the glass lightly, as if wanting to get out and move towards Christine. This entire display seemed to worry Wong and he looked ready to fight, whether the staff or Christine or them combined, she wasn’t sure, but she could hardly blame him given the circumstances.

“You’re not ready to yield such power, Dr. Palmer. While I trust that you are an intelligent and capable learner, much like Strange, you are not ready for it,” he warned.

“I feel differently about him now. Wouldn’t that change the outcome?”

“Grief is no easier emotion to yield than anger.”

“I’m not going to try,” Christine assured, although part of her did wonder now, as she stood so close to the staff, if it’s incredible powers would not help the world more than her medical expertize. Despite Wong’s words, she had yielded its powers once before and not too badly she had thought, not for her first try.

So it had been after their trip to France. Christine was still in good spirits over it, everyone in the hospital were talking about it, because of course, telling just one person in the break room, would ensure that by noon even one's chattier patients knew. Christine thought she and Stephen were getting to a good friendly place. They were sitting in the Sanctum library, Stephen was researching something, reading books only in Sanskrit and occasionally taking notes with his now shaky and difficult to read handwriting. Christine was reading one of the books that was more along the lines of “A beginners guide to magic”. It was in Latin, so she was more or less managing it, although it was by no means easy reading and every now and again she would have to ask Stephen for help translating if Google translate’s answers didn’t seem quite right to her. She was still a bit amazed that the place had such good Wi-fi.

The silence between the two doctors was companionable and it reminded her of the times Stephen and she would sit in their often shared hotel rooms and compare and go over conference notes. That in turn got her thinking about other things they had done together in those shared hotel rooms. She was quite far gone in her fantasy when Stephen interrupted her thoughts: “Got stuck somewhere?”

She jumped: “Oh. No. Just side-tracked by my own thoughts.”

“Oh? What were you thinking about?”

Christine hesitated, then decided to be honest about it: “21st Annual Congress on Cardiology and Medical Interventions.”

Stephen’s eyes lit up with recognition and he swallowed in a way that made Christine smile. Good. She wasn’t the only one with her mind in a gutter now.”

“That was a good one. Very informative.”

She smiled: “Yes. I loved it too. I was just remembering how we compared notes afterwards in our room. What was your favourite bit?”

Stephen seemed a bit confused about whether they were talking about the official programme or not. He hesitated: “Well, the lectures were good, but I think I especially enjoyed the workshop that took part in our hotel room later that evening."

Christine laughed.

“Too much?” he guessed.

She shook her head: “No, I must say, you made excellent use of your anatomical knowledge of the female body and putting them into practice.”

He smiled: “Yes. I haven’t had that particular type of practice in a while,” he admitted and Christine appreciated his honesty.

“Do you have to be in celibate now? I mean, your friend Wong does dresses a bit like a monk.”

“No,” Stephen assured.

Christine smiled and bit her lip:”Good.”

Stephen’s eyebrows shot so high they were on the verge of leaving his face: “I haven’t…”

Their lovely flirtation was brought to an abrupt end by a loud crash downstairs. Stephen switched from flirty Dr. Strange to Sorcerer Strange in an instant. A magical shield and a weapon appearing already: “Stay here!” Stephen barked and rushed downstairs.

Christine followed that order just until Stephen was out of sight. She wanted to know what was going on, make sure Stephen was safe, if he was hurt she could help. She followed him quietly, crouching down behind one of the pillars and watching the scene that unfolded before her.

There was a woman, a sorceress by the looks of it, walking into the place like it was a runway show, her hair magically blowing around her face as if there were an invisible fan somewhere. A drama queen for sure it seemed.

“Was knocking simply not an option? You just had to break the door, didn’t you?” Stephen asked in his usual smug humour that Christine quite appreciated.

“Out of my way, insignificant man,” she said, brushing him off with a force that sent Stephen flying into a nearby mirror, shattering glass all around, and that should have terrified Christine, but instead made her come out of her hiding place: “Hang on a minute, lady…”

Stephen was getting himself up, wincing visibly: “Christine! I told you to stay hidden!”

“Don’t tell me what to do!”

“Men,” their visitor snorted: “The days when you treat women lowly are behind us. I intend to right all the wrongs you have done!”

“That sounds righteous,” Christine conceded: ”But I’m not sure it warrants throwing Stephen around like a paper bag.”

“Mark my words, child,” she said and Christine found that odd, because she did not look older than her: “This man will too, once, break your heart, just as all others have.”

“Oh he has. Plentiful. He has been downright awful to me.”

“Then why still side by him?”

Christine found she was struggling momentarily with an answer and their intruder took advantage of her silence: “Come. Let’s right all the wrong he has done to you.”

Christine considered, it seemed like a good opportunity to find out this woman’s exact plan: “All right. How do you suppose we do that?”

“I seek a staff that is in this Sanctum. A staff of emotions, sensations, desires and feelings. The stone upon it grants it’s wearer unbelievable powers, it draws energy from your emotional state and converts it to magic, with it I can right the wrongs of many men.”

“Right. Well, all the relic stuff is upstairs in the cupboards, I expect you would fine it there.”

“Christine!” Stephen shouted: “You can’t just tell the villain where the stuff she’s after is! That’s common knowledge!”

Stephen had gotten up again and the woman forced him back down as Christine and she made it upstairs. She looked towards Stephen and smiled apologetically: “You might want to sit this one out.”

They found the staff in one of the glass containers: “It takes the feelings you harbour for your opponent and lets you use them against him.”

“Only negative feelings?”

“Technically no, but men warrant no positive emotions,” the intruder said.

By the time the woman had broken the glass and was reaching for the staff Stephen was back upstairs with them, determined to stop them. The woman reached out and black clouds surrounded her momentarily, before she reappeared in a long sparkly black dress. Christine could feel the magic vibrating off her. So much negative energy. This wasn’t very good.

She smiled at Stephen, a truly menacing smile: “You will pay for what you have done to this woman, man, and then after you all other men will do the same.”

“Listen, I’m not denying that I’ve been bad to Christine, but I’ve been trying to fix things and don’t you think this is between her and I?”

A thought occurred to Christine : “He’s right. This is the man who broke my heart. I broke up with him, because he was an arrogant bastard who wanted all eyes to be on him. But then he was caught in a terrible accident and I, realizing I still loved him, decided to take care of him, I was by his side in his darkest hour, I did everything I could, tried to support him in his obsession to try and get his career back, because I understood, I was unsure I would be any less upset myself if my whole world crashed down like that, but I had hoped that perhaps I could offer him some solace, something else, that together we could pull through this tradegy, that he might learn something and move on to a slightly different medical career. What a foolish woman I was. He threw all that into my face and left without even telling me where he went,” Christine had tears in her eyes. She had been trying to convince their villain that she hated Stephen, but in the progress had discovered she still harboured a lot of those negative feelings: “Don’t I deserve to be the one to end him?!”

The villainess was convinced: “You do, my child. Take this staff and end him. As Christine’s fingers reached for the staff, the stone shore brightly, the black clouds reappeared around her and there was a crackle of thunder. Christine could feel the magic in her vains. It was dizzying. She had never felt so powerful, all of her emotions were amplified. She was almost overwhelmed by them. She looked down at herself with shock. It was safe to say everyone were nearly as shocked as she was.

“Wow,” Christine breathed.

“You are _really mad at him,”_ the villainous woman remarked, she sounded very impressed.

Stephen looked shocked too, his eyes wide and jaw slack: “I thought we were getting things worked out...”

Christine turned instead to the lady: “So – now what?” her voice sounded odd. As if someone had lowered it’s pitch and added a thunderous echo sound effect.

“Obliterate him!”

“Okay. How do I do that?”

“Okay? What do you mean _okay?_ Christine you are a  _good person!_ You’re a _doctor for Christ’s sake!”_ Stephen protested.

By this time Wong finally made an appearance, perhaps finally realizing Stephen was not on top of things himself. Christine felt something being wrapped around her ankle and with it she felt a surge of fresh anger. She was handling this! What was with everyone treating her like she couldn’t handle things? She loathed it. She turned to Wong, eyes blazing with fury and said in her newly found echoing thunderous voice: “Stay of out of this! This is between me and Stephen!”

For once, Stephen seemed to agree, he held up his hands as he spoke: “You know maybe you should do that. I’ll handle her.”

“ _You’ll handle me?!”_ Christine echoed furiously: “How exactly do you plan on _handling me,_ Witch Doctor?”

The villainous woman had dealt with keeping Wong off Christine herself and handed Christine a cell phone: “Read the lines off this and point the beam towards him.”

“Really? You’re going to read a spell of a phone screen? So much for class.”

“Stephen, this place has free Wi-fi and I’ve seen your laptop and I’m pretty sure Wong has and iPod so how about you shut up?” Christine snapped: “Oh God, it’s Latin again. Oh well, better than Sanskrit. Okay, this is simple enough,” she cleared her throat, gripped the staff with one hand and said: “ _Ego in aeternum Abysso.”_ Around her purple clouds of mist appeared and crackled, creating not only some wind, but a large vortex-like occurrence that swirled around Stephen, without swallowing him. Christine wondered if the shields that he magically conjured up around him were just a reflex or if he put conscious effort into them. Stephen actually looked mildly terrified as Christine felt the crystal’s power multiplying itself. There was something oddly satisfying about that. The crystal shone brighter now with each moment and Christine could feel exactly when it’s power was going to be released and she thought she could even control it, but didn’t opt to try, instead she waited for a moment until it did.

“Christine, I know I hurt you and I probably deserve this, but don’t give the staff to her once you’re done, no matter what, “ Stephen said quietly, so only Christine could hear.

The moment was upon them, the staff’s power had reached it’s peak, Christine then directed the beam swiftly at their intruder. She was gone so fast there was barely time for her to look shocked. Christine found that directing the beam had been hard work and she was now trying to catch her breath: “Did I kill her?”

“We’ll have to check the necessary literature, but I don’t think so. You just cast her away somewhere judging from the spell you recited. Into an abyss? That’s what you said?”

“I know what I _said, Stephen!”_ she snapped, turning back to face him: “I’m not an idiot!” she could feel the dark magic around her again, amplifying her emotions, but also making her stronger, shielding her, protecting her.

Stephen looked taken aback: “I know you aren’t. I wasn’t suggesting you are.”

“ _Bastard_ ,” Christine muttered furiously: “You bloody bastard! You thought I would actually do it!”

“Well, it is apparent you’re still mad at me…” Stephen pointed out quietly.

“But to kill you!” she all but roared and Stephen was taking small steps away from her, backing down, she followed “To murder you, Stephen! To murder anyone!” She was hurt now too, although still angry, her dress, before fully black had become stylishly streaked with hues of blue now as well. Tears welled up in her eyes. How could Stephen think so badly of her, for even a moment?

“I didn’t. I just thought I would deserve it. I wouldn’t have held it against you,” Stephen had reached the staircase now, one more step and he would fall down from it. He took that step and Christine took his hand in an instant to save him from falling down the stairs, lilac hues now coloured her black and blue dress, something akin to affection, but not quite, more concern than love. She took Stephen’s hand and he could feel her every emotion, her hatered and sadness burned him, actually physically burned him and he gasped in pain: “Stop… it hurts…”

Startled, Christine pulled him forward a bit to make sure he didn’t fall down the stairs, before letting him go: “I’m sorry,” she whispered and her dress became streaked with yet more colours, hues of muddy yellow. Stephen had by now figured out the correlation between the colour scheme of the dress and Christine’s feelings, he looked up from the ground, trying to get back up without putting his now burnt palm in contact with the floor and smiled at the sight of her: “Your feelings for me are so complicated.”

She didn’t deny this:”Well, Yes.”

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered and just like that there were hues of pink there too and the dress was becoming almost more colourful than it was black. Stephen had gotten to his feet now: “Give me back the staff,” he said, much too gently: “It’s dangerous.”

“I’m not a child or a wounded animal. Don’t talk to me like I am. I am _fine.”_

“You’re not a child or an animal, but you know little about magic and this is a very powerful artefact.”

Christine’s dress was loosing all of its colours again: “Right. Because you never tried any of this stuff out before knowing everything there was to know about it.”

Stephen didn’t think he had told him that. Did she guess? Had Wong told her?: “Okay. Fair point, but that was – foolish of me. Let go of the staff and don’t get angry again.”

“Don’t get angry again? Seriously Stephen, now you’re actually implying I can’t control my bloody emotions!” she shouted. Her dress completely black again. She took a deep breath, realizing she was making his case for him, but it didn’t seem to do much. She tried to drop the staff. She knew it was the right thing to do, but she couldn’t. It was as if it was glued to her fingers now, as if the staff had become part of her. This was not good. She panicked, her dress suddenly a bright red tone that somehow communicated no feelings of love as red often did. There was as much red now as there was black.

Stephen noticed it too, he searched her face for any indication as to what the colour meant, but she hid it well. Wong was getting himself up. This was bad. Christine had to leave, before she would accidentally hurt either of them. Panic and fear coloured her dress a sickly reddish and blueish that was painful to look at.

“Christine? Christine, what is it? Talk to me.”

She pushed Stephen away from her and the paralyzing fear that emitted from her rendered him motionless for a moment so she could get away. She ran home. He noticed her dress was white around the edges and wondered what it meant.

She took a cab home, not wanting to risk hurting anyone by accidentally bumping into someone and making them feel all the panic in the world. She tried to let go of the staff there in the cab while the driver commented on the beauty of her dress and it wouldn’t work. Panic had a grip as strong as anger on it, it seemed. It was turning into fear now too and she felt like crying, the colours of the magical fabric were bright, nauseating and hard to make out. It was too much. It was all too much. Everything was so amplified. She couldn’t take it. She fled to her flat and threw herself on her bed.

 _Calm down, calm down, you have to calm down._ She told herself, except she couldn’t. Calmness had eluded her completely. She had never had a serious panic attack, but now she felt like she was having the mother of all panic attacks. She was curled up on her bed in a ball gown, still unable to let go of her staff and crying when Stephen stepped into the room through a portal: “Oh. You’re here after all.”

She sat up instantly: “Stephen… help me. I – I can’t let go of this!”

He nodded and raised his hands in a manner that suggested he came in peace: “Okay. We’ll figure this out. Just don’t touch me and calm down.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do Stephen?! I can’t calm down! This bloody thing amplifies my every emotion! I can’t calm down so stop telling me to!”

Stephen noted the black mixed with the bright blues:”God, I got to stop making you so angry.”

“Yes,” Christine agreed: “It’s too much Stephen. It’s going to kill me.”

“No, it won’t,” Stephen said surely, walking closer: “I won’t let that thing kill you even if I have to cut your fingers off to get it off you. But let’s hope we won’t resort to that.”

Christine smiled, the black faded, soft hues of pink blossomed here and there: “Good. Keep going like that.”

Stephen smiled: “Wasn’t actually a conscious effort, but I’ll try,” he came to sit by her bed, inspecting the situation, careful not to touch her.

She inspected him too: “Stephen, I think you’ve got tiny pieces of glass in your hair.”

“I know. I think I’ve got a few stuck here and there too. I fell into a cupboard. Well, our evil enemy pushed me.”

“What? Let me see,” Christine demanded.

“Right after we sort this out. Is this lighter yellow concern for me now?”

“No, not after we sort this out. This is complex. God knows how long this will take. We’ll go to the bathroom now and look over your injuries,” she demanded.

“Christine I’m magic, it’s a few glass shards.”

“Do you have magical healing spells for this kind of thing then?”

“I… I can turn back time, although I wouldn’t for this.”

“Okay. Well then, bathroom it is, Mister. Get up or I’ll touch you,” she threatened. Her dress was mostly in warm hues now, a soft minty green as well as light pastel pink and loads of light pastel yellows, mixed in with grey streaks that showed her annoyance over Stephen not listening to her.

“Christine I think you having a magical pole that you can’t let go of takes precedence over me having some glass shards in me,” Stephen argued, but he was still moving towards the bathroom as told.

“I’m all right as long as you don’t piss me off,” she pointed out with a gentle smile.

Stephen made it to the bathroom where he obediently looked himself over and made sure that there were no tiny pieces of glass embedded in his skin: “Right. Now can we finally focus on you?”

Christine smiled: “You’re still bleeding a bit, Stephen. I’m fine.”

“The same kind of fine when I came to find you after work doing your sixth our overtime over on the days that you started before me?”

She shrugged: “Sometimes there’s a lot of work.”

“No, sometimes you neglect yourself for the benefit of the others,” he argued softly. It didn’t sound like an insult.

Christine smiled:”You’d look after me.”

“Not nearly enough. Not as much as you look after me. Which I did appreciate. Really. Even when I didn’t say it, I did. I just kind of loathed everything else about the situation.”

She smiled, her dress was nearly fully white now, only streaks of blue decorating it and marking the sorrow she still felt for Stephen and his suffering. She looked like a fairy or an angel now rather than a supervillain. Stephen decided to remark upon it: “You look much lighter. Angelic.”

She smiled, then noticed the burn marks on his palm and winced, closing her eyes for a moment, Stephen wondered what she was doing, but whatever it was it seemed to whiten her dress considerably.

“Give me your hand.”

Stephen didn’t seem incredibly keen on that plan.

“Trust me, Stephen.”

He couldn’t argue with that request even if it meant he ended up having more burn marks, so he did, hesitantly. He gasped instantly at the touch and Christine startled: “Does it hurt?”

“No it’s – it’s ecstatic. Wonderful, I’ve never felt quite so…” he looked for a word: “Cared for. God, I think this would be _really_ easy to get seriously addicted to. You need to let go of me, before I become completely unable to live without this,” he sighed happily: “Christ, Christine, you are one complex woman.”

“It’s a complicated relationship,” she thought: “I want to try something,” she brought her lips to Stephen’s palm and kissed it and instantly the burn marks faded away into nothingness. Stephen made some rather obscene noises that made Christine blush, her mind was not yet in the gutter, but it was heading there and Stephen protested this: “Oh God, don’t start thinking about _sex,_ I might actually die if you do,” his body collapsed against Christine’s and she caught him, stroking his cheek, smiling: “You could just let go of me,” she pointed out, cheekily.

“ _Never,_ ” he argued, burying his face into Christine’s neck in an effort to get even closer. He was so far gone in the sensations of Christine’s kindness, softness, lovingness and slight flirtation that he cared little about keeping appearances. He just wanted to keep on feeling this amazing feeling of being so deeply cared for all of a sudden: “So good, feels so good…” he muttered.

“If you don’t want me to think about sex, stop sounding the way you normally do in bed,” she pointed out.

“Your voice sounds different now too,” Stephen pointed out: “It sounded demonic before, but now it’s all… soft and angelic.”

“I’ve noticed,” Christine said: “I think I could let go now.”

“Must you?” Stephen muttered, his voice muffled by her skin: “I think I would fall over.”

She laughed, and that too, felt wonderful: “Not of you, you idiot, of the staff.”

“Oh. You probably should then.”

“Yeah, I guess. Stephen?”

“Mmm?”

“Do you think I could heal your hands with this too?”

Stephen reached out one of his shaking and battered hands to inspect it and consider: “Possibly. It is very strong magic.”

Christine instantly brought his hands to her lips and kissed the scarring. That too, felt good, they didn’t shake as she held them and Stephen seemed able to move them with more fluid motions, but the effect would clearly not be permanent: “They don’t ache. But you might need a spell for something more permanent. I can look it up.”

“Do they normally ache then? All the time?”

He could feel her concern and had to pull away a bit, it did help to clear his head: “Sometimes. Well, frequently. Yes. When I use them for things,” he tried to joke, but that didn’t seem to sit well with her.

“Stephen, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be. It’s – not that terrible. Don’t feel bad. Please. Seriously, I might have to take my hand back if you do."

She looked down at herself: “I think it’s not pure enough,” she said. She took another deep breath to try and wash away her sadness: “If all there is would be love, then I think I could do it.”

“You don’t know that,” Stephen said softly: “I can look – “

“No, but I can feel it,” she lifted the dress and there, underneath layers of mostly white magical dress were still plenty of other colours on the deeper levels, although Stephen was mostly just glad to see it wasn’t mostly black.

“If all I could feel was earnest love, I could do it,” she said and she sounded sad and frustrated: “I could do so many good things.”

“Yes, but you wouldn’t be human. It’s okay, Christine. It’s okay to feel things and I’m okay with, you know, I don’t expect you to fix me. Drop the staff, Christine. It’s fine. You don’t have to become humanity’s emotionless savour. Just let go of the bloody thing.”

She smiled at him: “Thank you,” and then she did. The staff fell on the ground and Christine was suddenly faced with the dizzying sensation of just being a normal human again:”Stephen?”

“Yeah?”

“Your turn to catch me,” she managed and fainted. Stephen did catch her.

Later when she woke up, she was in her own bed, facing the window, but there was a familiar shaky hand stroking her hair: “Stephen?”

“Yeah. How do you feel?”

She turned to face him: “Fine. Very much drained, but fine. What did you do with the staff?”

“I went and put it away, before coming back to you.” 

She hummed: “Sort of wish it was here,” she muttered. She could feel Stephen’s hand stilling and his body tensing next to him: “Why?” he asked cautiously.

She took a moment to turn around, facing him: “So you’d know how I feel.”

“I’ll make do with facial cues,” he smirked.

She smiled: “It’s just – there was a disproportional amount of hatred there and I don’t want you to think –“

“That you hate me?”

“Or that I’m bipolar,” she tried to joked: “There was a lot of mood swings there.”

“Well, if it amplifies everything you’re feeling that kind of outcome might be pretty normal.”

Christine made the effort to sit up: “I’m serious though, I don’t hate you. At all. I’m still made at you, but that’s not the same thing.”

“I know,” Stephen said softly, looking down at his lap and Christine noticed that he had climbed into her bed with those awful boots on and decided she would shout at him at the earliest suitable moment: “And while it does surprise – it did surprise me a bit to learn just how much anger there still is, it’s all on me. All my fault.”

Christine sighed: “That’s my point. I don’t just need you to know that I don’t hate you, or even that I worry about you or want you to be better,” But she couldn’t bring herself to admit what she did feel. Partly because it seemed so dangerous to say these words out loud and give Stephen that knowledge, a weapon that could still be used against her later and although technically she knew that letting him know with the power of the magic staff was basically the same thing, saying it out aloud still _felt_ like something else: “I need you to know that there’s more.”

“I do. I felt it and as long as there’s still some of _that_ left I will do my best to cultivate it and write my wrongs.”

“Good,” Christine agreed: “Now, we’ve talked about this self-loathing before and how I don’t like it and I believe I have also mentioned I’m not a big fan of shoes on the bed. Or boots.”

“Ah, Yes. Sorry,” Stephen apologized and Christine recalled how she spent the next fifteen minutes fighting the many ribbons, belts, buckles and laces that his boots had. She had then understood completely why he hadn’t taken the damn things off, but didn’t back down on her wish or offer to help, because it had felt patronizing and almost like pointing out the fact that his hands still shook from nerve damage. A fact which she hadn’t been able to fix after all. She had tried to make small talk for a while, but eventually had come back to the elephant in the room:”That’s it. I’ve decided. Never having sex with you again.”

Stephen had seemed truly startled: “What brought that on?”

“It takes you twenty minutes to take your boots off. The rest of the outfit doesn’t seem that much simpler,” she had teased.  

“It is way easier to take off! I dealt with some of it when you insisted on those glass shards!”

“Exactly and it took you _ages!”_

“I’ll wear more sensible clothes if that’s all that it takes.”

She had laughed: “No, I’m not quite that easy.”

 

Looking back on the whole affair, Wong had definitely been right, with her current emotions in such a turmoil as they currently were, using that particular magical item was certainly out of the question. Besides, based on her brief one day experience, much as having awesome powers felt – well – awesome, Christine still didn’t think that she was cut out for that sort of life. She walked past the cupboard that contained the staff and tried to get her mind back onto the matter of her special practice, even if she kept slipping up, her mind going back to Stephen and their time together now and again. Time, that was now all in the past it would seem. She remembered Stephen telling her once that he could manipulate time, that if needed he could look into all the other possible futures and timelines. The conversation had revolved around Stephen’s life-changing accident once again.  Christine had been wondering how she might have reacted when the tables had turned and that’s when Stephen had pointed out that alternative timelines were in fact something he had the ability to look into.

“But I don’t think you would have driven recklessly like I did, so it wouldn’t have happened to you.”

“What if I had been in the car with you?” Christine had hypothesised.

“Then we would have both been hurt and it wouldn’t have had been a case of tables being turned,” Stephen had pointed out: “Besides, you would have never let me drive like that. And I wouldn’t have with you in the car.”

“Then I regret not being in the car with you.”

“Then I wouldn’t have had become a sorcerer and the Earth might have been devoured. Most likely would have.”

“Damn, we just can’t win this one, can we?”

“Some things you can’t win.”

Christine wondered if half the universe’s population being wiped out had been one of those things. Surely Stephen had looked? Surely there must have been at least one way amongst the millions?

**Author's Note:**

> I got some good feedback on my previous story and it inspired me to write down this idea I've had for a while. I tried to make use of the canon too, but let my imagination go a bit on this one. Thank you for reading. If you have time to comment, know that I would greatly appreciate it.
> 
> Oh and I used Google translate for the Latin bit, so feel free to correct me there.


End file.
